A Touch of Midnight by Lara Adrian

Savannah Dupree is halfway across the country from her Louisiana bayou hometown, a freshman studying at Boston University on a full scholarship. But academic excellence is only one of Savannah’s gifts. She possesses something even more remarkable than her quick mind and insatiable curiosity for learning. With a simple touch, Savannah can see an object’s past—a skill that puts her life in danger, when her studies bring her into contact with a centuries-old English sword and the secret hidden within the blade’s history: the vicious murders of twin boys by a group of fanged creatures borne of the worst kind of nightmare.

In all his three hundred years of living as one of the Breed, vampire warrior Gideon never dreamed he’d see the blade again that spilled his young brothers’ lives ages ago on that blood-soaked night in London. Ever since the boys’ deaths, Gideon’s been on a personal quest to rid the world of Rogue vampires, but now he can’t help wondering if the brutal slayings of his only kin was something more sinister—an act perpetrated by an unknown enemy. An enemy who is apparently living in hiding somewhere in Boston. There’s one certain way to prove Gideon’s suspicion, but it will mean using innocent, gifted Savannah to help uncover the full truth—a truth that will shatter everything she knows about herself and the world around her. And with danger closing in from all sides, the passion that ignites between Gideon and Savannah will tempt them to risk their hearts and lives for a love that might just last an eternity…

Once Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed vampire series became popular she gave us this flashback to the 1970s to tell the story of how two secondary characters got together. Despite the fact the author’s books tend to all seem similar after you’ve read a few, and once again the relationship happens almost instantaneously, there was a lot to enjoy in this one.

Other than Patricia Briggs’ books, I have practically stopped reading paranormal books, so I’ve made a decision to force myself to read more again! I had this novella (which is actually quite a long and fulfilling story) on my Kindle for a long, long time and figured it was time to read it!

A Touch of Midnight takes us back to when tech geek Gideon was one of the powerful Breed warriors and when his mate Savannah was a student and knew nothing of this other world. I liked the little nods to the past: Oh, no, an emergency! I have to find change and run down the street to the payphone!

I also loved that there was talk of Gideon fiddling around with futuristic (for the time) devices, like desktop computers. One major criticism of the similar Black Dagger Brotherhood series is that the vampires never invented anything and only used human technology (even though humans aren’t supposed to be as great). So I appreciated that.

However, I found it a bit amusing that the author wasn’t brave enough to change her warrior heroes’ clothing or speech. Still the fatigues and the black leather – no bell bottoms and disco for our Seventies superheroes!

The sameness to Adrian’s writing is a good argument to not read lots of her books one after the other.

Eighteen-year-old, African-American, Seventies Savannah was really no different to mid-twenties, blonde, professional, 2000s heroines from some of the other books. No matter whether the Breed warrior in question is English, Italian, Spanish or otherwise, they’re all identical in speech and behaviour.

The characters once again fall in love and change their whole lives after only a few days. I never really buy the happy endings, especially as the men involved are many centuries old!

The plot, while fun, bears resemblance to many of the author’s other books.

However, I’m glad I forced myself to pick up a paranormal book for a change. It was fun.